Chronically Expecting Something

“Peace begins when expectation ends.” ― Sri Chinmoy

I received some not great news on my birthday.  Or maybe a more accurate description of what came to pass is that I had an expectation of what I wanted to hear from my kidney transplant nurse, and that's not what I heard.

I've been doing some blood work and tests since the end of 2016 with the goal of being cleared to get a baby in my belly at some point in the future.  My blood work isn't great. My creatinine is above 2 now (the last reading was 2.6).  That last pregnancy really rocked my health world.  Things most likely won't go back to the way they were, when I was "healed" or whatever the hell that was, unless I have another kidney transplant. So it seems like this is as good as it gets.  

***And a bit of clarification: when I say get the "clear" to become pregnant, I'm never going to have a doctor tell me, "Yes, my child you should carry a baby in your state of three kidneys, one working."  Girl, please.  I am not a healthy person. Mostly what I'm looking for is, "Welp, your kidneys aren't failing right now, so Godspeed."***

So on my birthday, my transplant nurse called to let me know that they'd received my blood work and that everything is fine. There's nothing to be alarmed about, buuuuut they want me to get another opinion from my other group of nephrologists before proceeding with a biopsy that will THEN determine what I can do next.

I was pretty upset with this news.  I wanted my transplant nurse to tell me I could change up some of my medicines now to prepare for becoming pregnant at some point down the road. But I'm confronted with more tasks and more time spent thinking, wondering, questioning the road that I'm on.  

A few days after turning 30 I reflected on when I was a little girl who truly believed that I would be living in a Barbie world --and not by 30, by 25.  And I thought to myself, "So this is my life."  This is the life of a woman who can't get pregnant whenever she wants to.  Where will I end up?  

I know this post makes me sound ungrateful for turning 30 and living another year and that I probably should be just focusing on what I got instead of what I don't got. I'm grateful for a hell of a lot of things and people in my life. But that doesn't mean I don't wonder, what if sometimes. I probably shouldn't be a role model for anyone, because I'm not at a point where I feel like I would do all of this again if I had to because my experiences have "made me who I am."  F&*k that. I had hopes and expectations for my life just like any normal person. I get to mourn the death of those dreams.

For me, living with a chronic illness is in part living a life of expectation.  Expecting a call from the doctor; expecting good news; expecting my labs to go well; expecting my labs to suck; expecting to have a successful pregnancy; expecting everything to go wrong again.  Expecting my kidney to last and expecting it to fail. 

I'm hoping that in the next 30 years, I can truly let go of how I hoped my life to turn out and really embrace the way it is without losing the tiniest bit of faith I have in receiving good news from time to time.